


you don't feel you could love me (but I feel you could)

by sabinelagrande



Series: Concerning Philippa [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: #coulsonlives, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Awkwardness, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, F/M, Female Phil Coulson, Misunderstandings, One of My Favorites, Pining, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve doesn't know what to do about Philippa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you don't feel you could love me (but I feel you could)

Steve doesn't know what to do about Philippa.

The jet ride up to the Helicarrier is one of the more awkward rides of his life; here's this woman gushing at him, and all he can do is alternate between thinking, 'Oh God, not again,' and thinking about how beautiful she is, cropped hair and all. Beautiful he can handle; he got real good at beautiful, being surrounded by chorus girls, but when beauty comes with a sidearm and a quick wit, well, he's not as good at dealing with that. 

He keeps it together, keeps his head in the game. She's his- SHIELD doesn't do chains of command, not really, not beyond 'Listen to Fury or get shot,' but he thinks she's probably his supervisor, and it doesn't seem right. SHIELD doesn't seem to care about that either, but someone's got to care about doing the right thing around here, and it might as well be Steve. If his eye lingers on her hands, the cut of her smart suits, that's his business, that's his problem. He can be a professional, detached and calm, cool-headed under pressure.

And then she dies, and he finds out he really, really can't. She's not the first person he's lost and she won't be the last, not by a long shot, but it doesn't mean it isn't a knife in his heart, doesn't make him think of every opportunity he missed, everything he could have done, everything he should have done.

And then she's not dead, thank God Almighty, and he'd punch Fury in the throat if he weren't so busy being relieved. Steve's so grateful; he has a problem, but he had a catastrophe. He'll take the problem any day of the week.

But it's still a problem.

He doesn't know what to do, but he does know that he wants backup, and he knows he isn't going to get it among the SHIELD rank and file, not even among the ones he's made friends with. He's worked with women in positions like hers before, and he knows that he's going to get two things: blank, vaguely terrified looks to his face and untoward whispers behind his back. One makes him frustrated and the other makes him angry; one he gets nothing from and the other is too much entirely. He's just going to take the risk and move up a level, get closer to her and hope it's not too much.

The best way to find Clint, ninety percent of the time, is to look up. Clint really doesn't care at all if friendlies know his position- not unless they're friendlies he's trying to screw with- so he's not bothered when Steve finds him on the catwalk over the commissary and hops up to join him, despite the fact that Steve is just bigger enough than Clint that it's uncomfortable for him in the cramped space.

"Afternoon, Cap," Clint says, keeping an eye on the scene below him. "Come up here to see if I was playing William Tell?"

"I don't think they're serving apples today," Steve says.

"Damn," Clint says, grinning. "I could use the practice." He turns to look at Steve, frowning at his expression. "What's on your mind?"

"Actually," Steve says, and this is starting to seem like a stupid plan. "I came to ask you about something." He adds, "It's about Phil," and Clint visibly tenses. Steve was kind of expecting that out of him; he didn't know Phil very well before she was stabbed, but the people who did, they're fiercely loyal to her, Clint over all of them.

"Shoot," Clint says warily.

"Do you know if- I don't know how to ask this." He holds up his hands, preemptively warding him off. "It's not bad if it's true, I just want to know, but somebody was saying she might, ah, like girls." That's the biggest rumor, there; he feels bad about buying into such a stereotypical one, but it's different now. Maybe it's not a threat so much as an open secret that Steve isn't privy to. 

Also he kind of really wants to know. It's sort of important.

"Phil?" Clint says, relaxing a little. "Nah. Or at least she does like men. There was this time with her and Natasha, but I'm pretty sure they were trying to stay warm-" He stops, frowning. "Not the point. Point is, she's not gay." He shrugs. "Matter of fact, the two of us- in a friendly way. Nothing serious."

Steve knows people used to do that in the forties; they just weren't so loud about it. "Well, that's good to know," he says. "About her liking guys, I mean," he adds, realizing what that sounded like, "not about her and you- I mean, it's not a problem, but if it's- if you were still, I wouldn't want to-"

Clint looks at him for a moment, then grins. "Well I'll be damned, Rogers. I didn't expect it from you."

"Expect what?" Steve says, alarm bells going off. "If I'm doing something inappropriate-"

Clint waves him off. "I just wouldn't have picked her for your type."

Steve thinks about Peggy, about the hole that she fit into in his heart; he thinks about the spirals of her hair, the curve of her hip, her ruthless efficiency, her aim with a handgun. He thinks about Philippa, so far and so close, about whether he can make someone else fit, ever have more than making do. "She's pretty close," Steve tells him.

"Look, if you're interested, then I won't get in your way." Clint smiles. "Pretty sure she'd straight up shoot me if I did."

Steve looks away, resisting the urge to shuffle his feet, even though there's no shuffling room. "I was wondering if you knew if she might-"

Clint shakes his head. "Not the kind of thing she'd talk about. I didn't even know she was into me until she walked into my room, took her top off, and said-" Clint coughs, catching himself again. Steve never feels more like everybody's Grandpa than when people censor themselves around him. "Not important. Anyway, she's pretty closed off."

Steve resists the urge to sigh. "I was afraid you'd say something like that."

"If you just asked her, she'd say," Clint says. "She's a very convincing liar, but she never does it when she doesn't have to."

"Thanks," Steve says. He frowns. "You won't- I mean, it wouldn't be a good idea if you said-"

"Secret's safe with me, Cap," Clint tells him, grinning. Steve knows that it actually is, that he can trust Clint with anything, but it doesn't make him any less nervous. This is all something out of high school already, and he really doesn't need anybody else in on it.

Steve's getting by, ignoring it when he can and feeling like an ass when he can't, but it's wearing him down, he's wearing down. It all comes to a head one day when he's on the bridge, looking out over the ocean. He hears the sharp clack of shoes behind him, the ones that go with Philippa's particular walk, not that Steve's been paying attention to what that sound is like. "Just the man I wanted to see," Phil says, coming up alongside him, and Steve's heart maybe speeds up a little.

"Oh?" he says.

"I need your print," she says, handing him a tablet.

"Sure thing," he replies, trying not to feel let down, taking the tablet from her and pressing his thumb against the box in the corner until it chimes in acceptance. She takes the tablet back from him, writing something on it with a stylus, not paying much attention to him for the moment, and Steve can't wait any longer. There's no choice but to bite the bullet, no time like the present.

"I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner," Steve says; he's trying to sound smooth, and he knows very well that he doesn't get anywhere in the ballpark. "I just thought it might be nice, since you've done so much for us," he adds hastily, trying for a convincing cover.

When she looks up at him, she's got the strangest smile on her face, so disappointed. "That's not necessary, Captain," she says, and ouch, it's 'Captain', just when she'd finally started calling him 'Steve'. He just screwed up big time, and he has no idea what he did. She looks down at the tablet, fidgeting with something. "If you'll excuse me," she says, and then she walks quickly away.

Steve looks around the bridge, trying to act nonchalant; at least nobody seems to be paying attention to how badly he just got burned.

Steve is very wrong in that assumption. The Helicarrier is basically a small town full of very dangerous and often very bored people, and gossip spreads like wildfire. Steve doesn't actually know this until a few days later, when he goes to the lab, looking for his StarkPad; missing electronics gravitate there, where they are often given 'hilarious' upgrades.

Steve doesn't find it, but he finds Tony. "Hey," he says, "have you seen my-"

While he's speaking, Tony pushes his monitor out of the way, not looking too pleased. "Hey yourself," Tony says, shoving hard on Steve's shoulder like he thinks picking a fight with a guy six inches taller than him in a room full of delicate equipment is a good idea. "I know what you're doing, and you better fucking knock it off."

Steve looks at him in confusion. "What am I doing?"

"Phil's not a fucking groupie, okay?" Tony snaps, and oh shit, if Tony knows, everybody officially knows now, and Steve very suddenly realizes that he is screwed. "You can't just fuck her just because she's got a crush on you. You're the one who's supposed to be above that."

Steve looks at him in shock. "That's not what I want at all."

"It better goddamn well not be."

Steve winces. "I wouldn't just sleep with her and leave her. I couldn't."

Tony clearly doesn't believe him. "She just had a spear put through her heart. She doesn't need it broken on top of that."

"Tony, how am I supposed to break her heart when she doesn't want me?" he blurts out.

Tony stops in his tracks. "That's a weird hypothetical."

"She turned me down," Steve mutters.

"Oh, bullshit she did," Tony says, rolling his eyes.

"I asked her to dinner," he says. "She said no."

"What did she say exactly?" Tony says, clearly not willing to let this one go.

"She said that it wasn't necessary," Steve tells him. "Neither is this conversation. Me and Phil, that's a dead end."

"God," Tony says, looking upwards and sighing. "If you want something done, you've got to pay someone to do it. That is absolutely the story of my life."

Steve's eyes widen. "Tony, no," he says. "I don't know what you're going to do, but don't."

"Already done," Tony says, walking away and pulling out his phone. Steve has no idea what's happened or is about to happen, but this is all going to end so incredibly poorly. He already knows that.

What comes next is so much better than Steve expects, and it's got the potential to be a million times worse. Steve doesn't know what in the hell Tony does or how he does it, whether it involves words or money or just an ether-soaked rag, but that Friday night he's standing in front of a fancy restaurant, pulling nervously at his cuffs as he waits for his date to arrive.

When she steps out of one of Tony's cars, Phil's wearing a suit, though this time she's wearing a royal blue shirt under it. At least that part is familiar, because Steve doesn't even know what he'd have done if she'd turned up in a dress. Run screaming into the night is an option, along with dropping dead where he stood.

"Steve," she says, and at least they're back to that now. "Sorry I'm late. Stark's under the impression that it's fashionable."

"Nothing to worry about," he says, and he wants to compliment her, say something, anything at all that will make him sound like he knows what he's doing, but all he manages is, "I think the table's ready."

"Lead the way," she tells him.

The restaurant is as swank on the inside as it looked from the outside, which doesn't surprise Steve at all; Tony is a lot of things, has a lot of problems, but he does have good taste.

"This is nice," Steve says, cutting into his steak. "I like this place."

"I'm pretty sure Stark owns it," she says. "Then again, Stark owns most everything."

Steve shakes his head. "I don't know how he even keeps track of it. Half the time I can't even find my shoes."

"He doesn't," Philippa tells him, a note of absolute certainty in her voice. "Ms. Potts is a friend and a woman I respect deeply, but I don't even know if she even does."

"I don't think he ever sees something he wants and passes it up without having it," Steve says. He realizes suddenly that he's on a date with a gorgeous woman who scares the hell out of him- in a good way- and he's sitting here talking about work, the work they do together, stuff they both know all about already. He flushes, despite himself, looking down at his plate, eating another piece of steak as a silence develops. "Um, I'm sorry," he says, putting down his fork, and Philippa frowns. "I just don't have anything interesting to talk about. The Yankees are in the off season."

Phil looks at him quizzically. "The Yankees suck."

Steve sighs. "Oh god, _thank_ you. It's just, what do you do when a team you love moves to a city you hate-" He stops. "But you grew up here, didn't you? Why don't you pull for the Yankees? Don't tell me you're a Mets fan." 

Phil pokes at her baked potato. "I didn't get into sports until college," she says, and somehow Steve knows she's lying, but he doesn't know why. "So what are the Dodgers' chances this season?"

"I wouldn't want to bore you," Steve says, and Phil raises a very expressive eyebrow at him. "No, no, no, I meant- I just have a lot of thoughts about it, and I've been told I, uh." What was it he'd overheard Agent Tahay say? That she thought she'd have to chew off her own arm to get away? "Ramble when I talk about baseball."

"Couldn't ramble enough for me," Phil tells him, and she's smiling such a pretty smile that Steve kind of loses track of what they're talking about for a second. "But be warned- I have some thoughts of my own, and not all of them are popular."

Steve grins. "Let's see what you've got, then."

It's so much better after that, so much nicer; if Steve could go back and tell his teenage self that you could take pretty girls out and talk to them about _baseball_ , then he wouldn't have been so damn scared of them. He doesn't think that he would have done anything differently, but at least the prospect wouldn't have been so daunting.

They talk and talk, through dinner and dessert and coffee and a drink on the wide deck of the restaurant. Tony's picked them the kind of place where people who recognize people pretend they don't recognize people, even people who save the world, and Steve really couldn't be happier for Tony's influence right now. No one bats an eyelash at Captain America and his companion, and for a minute it's like nobody knows, like it's normal again, like he really just could be Steve Rogers and she really could just be Philippa Coulson, and no one would need to wear a suit ever again.

Tony's driver rolls up to take them home; two cars to get there and one car to leave, Steve's on to Tony's game, but he's still in a good enough mood that it just seems like perfect planning. They pull up to a house in a quiet neighborhood, the kind of nondescript place that SHIELD agents keep up for appearances, for alibis, for breaks from the sheer manic pressure of the Helicarrier.

Steve walks her to the door, and suddenly his mouth goes dry and his palms sweat; his good mood is turning into something else, a knot of tension in his stomach. He hasn't really done this since maybe 1938, and even then, he only did it once or twice. "I had a good time," he says.

"It was fun," Phil says. Steve has no sense of timing; he leans in and kisses her while she's looking for her house keys, her hand in her pocket. She's surprised for a moment, stiff in his arms, but then she relaxes, kissing him back. Her body fits right up against his, the two of them clicking together like magnets, and Steve doesn't want to ever let her go. 

She pushes him away suddenly. "I need you not to do this to me."

"I won't touch you if you don't want me to," Steve says, standing back and putting his hands up, even though he's so frustrated he doesn't even know what to do. "But please just talk to me, okay? Please? Because I'm messing something up and I just want to know what it is so I can stop."

Phil sighs. "I don't know what you think is going on, and I don't know what you're trying to do," she tells him. "But I don't appreciate you coming on to me just because I'm a fan and an easy mark." She shuts her eyes. "I need to think that you're better than that, even if you aren't. So please-"

"You're really pretty," he says, before she can send him away, and she gives him a look that says he's not helping his case. "You're so much smarter than I'll ever be, and you're so good at putting up with all of us when we act like assholes." He suppresses the urge to apologize for his language. "I wish you had no idea who I was. Then I could just try to impress you instead of having to live up to how I already did."

Phil is just staring at him, not moving, and Steve knows that's it, that he's screwed up bad enough that he's not going to be able to talk himself out of it- not that he's good at that to start with. But when he turns to go, she catches his arm. "Just wait," she says. "Just give me a minute." She smiles weakly. "It's not every day that someone you've been in love with for upwards of forty years says something like that to you."

"I'll go if you want me to," he promises.

"Please don't," she says. She takes a hesitant step forward, like she's testing it out, afraid to proceed, but she puts her arms around him, pulling him down so she can kiss him again. It's different, this time; they fit before, but now it's totally different, the two of them like one person. He's never had a kiss quite like this one before, never felt it in just the same way.

She pulls away again, putting a hand on his chest, and his heart quails for a moment, unsure what's coming. "Would you," she says, and she stops, like she's run out of breath. "Would you like to come in?"

"I'd love to," he says, so relieved that this is actually going the way he'd hoped now.

"Okay," she says, turning to unlock the door. "Okay." Her steady hands fumble as she works the knob, and something about it is gratifying, the idea that he's done that, that he's not the only one completely thrown here.

She opens the door and shows him in; he doesn't actually see any of the house, because just as soon as the door shuts behind them, she pushes him up against it, leaning up and hooking her arms around his neck. Her waist fits so neatly in his hands, like it was always meant to be there, like he was always meant to hold her like this. He bends, meeting her for more of those awe-inspiring kisses, the ones he doesn't even know what to do with yet.

It takes him a while to realize that he's lifted her off of the floor in his enthusiasm, and he gently sets her back on her feet. "I, uh. I know things are really different and it's not a big deal, but I'm not, um." He tries to find a delicate way to put it, but it's not easy. "Fast."

"It can be as slow as you want," she promises. "Right now, do you want to neck on my couch?"

He gives her an amused look. "I didn't think people said 'neck' anymore."

"I just wanted to be perfectly clear as to what you're getting into," Phil says, smirking playfully, and something about it is devastatingly hot. "Do I get an answer?"

"Yes, please," Steve stammers, putting his hand in hers and letting her lead him over to the couch. He lies back and tugs her towards him; he does it a little too hard, and she overbalances, ending up on top of him. "Sorry," he says quietly, sliding a hand up her back. She just shakes her head, running her hands through his hair and kissing him. He could lay here all night long and do this, has every intention of doing it as long as he can, because there's nothing but this, nothing he wants more.

Something twinges in his heart, a healing pain, a suggestion of what used to be, but it also feels good, a heaviness going away. Maybe there never was a Peggy-shaped hole inside of him; maybe there isn't a Philippa-shaped one either. Maybe there was only ever him, only ever a thing inside him that could expand to enfold someone, someone special.

Phil's pretty special.

"It's getting late," he says, very reluctantly, pulling himself away from her only with great difficulty; he's been here a long while and it hasn't nearly been enough, maybe couldn't be enough right now.

"You don't have to leave," she says softly. "I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want, but I'm not going to make you go."

"That sounds nice," he replies.

"This way," she tells him, standing up on shaky legs, and Tony's car isn't waiting in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> But wait, there's more! For more set in this 'verse, see [why don't we get together](http://archiveofourown.org/works/518561) for assorted ficlets of this general sort and nature.


End file.
